ElinF

She an oncology patient who gets regular transfusions. She was just unfortunate to get Flu B this year. We have been transfusing her for years.

How do you handle units being returned (within the appropriate temperature and time frame) from a patient who is isolated (and units not in a cooler- but it was in a biohazard bag- did they take it out of the bag? I don't know). We don't have very many returned units, but this past weekend we had a patient under precautions for COVID-19 and her unit was returned to us. You can't sterilize a unit...so then I got to thinking, what about other isolated patients. The patient actually has Flu B. So is it ok for this unit to be used for someone else? I have never actually had this problem that I know of.

We perform upon receipt and after repairs for the full calibration. Spin speed is checked annually.

We are a smaller hospital, but surprisingly we have had a lot of Emergency Releases lately that would have been MTPs had our policy been ready. It is now! (It mimics our sister hospital which is a big hospital, although not a trauma center) We have 1 form that we use for the physician signature and the stickers from 4 RBC units and 1 plt unit. This is given to the Trauma "scriber" and they write down as each unit is transfused. The paper is returned and we input the dispense times as noted on the form. We were using our emergency release process in Millennium, but it takes to long to print all those forms and have the physician sign each one.

Does anyone else use Smart Temps and hate it (love it in theory)? I cannot get it to notify me when I need it to. It works sometimes, but I have dinked around with this for hours and I am not getting anywhere. Their customer service has been very nice and responsive, but I am still having such trouble. Just venting really.

I could "listen" to Malcolm explain stuff all day!!

This is amazing and most definitely deserved!! I love reading your responses to EVERYONE'S questions and your knowledge is unbelievable. Thank you for all your help!

This sound like what we are doing...You are now my best friend so we can trade tips and secrets! haha

Twice a year our suppliers send a slip of paper in the transport container asking us to take the temp and fax it to them.

This sounds better. Thanks so much!!

We are a small laboratory, with a somewhat busy blood bank, but will start storing platelets here on site after having too many patient scares needed platelets, and starting an MTP process here soon. What is the smallest platelet incubator out there? We currently have Helmer brand fridge/freezer, but it looks like theirs model holds 16 units. Too big. We currently order platelets as they are ordered by physicians and take the temp every 4 hours, but this will not be feasible if we have them on site all the time. thanks for any suggestions! Elin

So ours has a dial we can set. I usually set it to a reasonable amount of rotating... not to fast, not too slow... What should the values be for optimal agitation of the platelets?

We are going towards Epic and Epic Beaker next year. For blood banking they are looking to go with WellSky. But I would love to join this conversation regarding the Epic standpoint.

We We got shamed once for the same people doing qc... Aka midnights. So we had to mix it up so more people did qc. Now we do midnight techs on weekends and holidays and day shift during the week.

I suppose we could thaw it in cold water, it would just take longer...but in an emergency that wouldn't work...